We talk about social service, service to the people, service to humanity, service to others who are far away, helping to bring peace to the world - but often we forget that it is the very people around us that we must live for first of all. If you cannot serve your wife or husband or child or parent - how are you going to serve society? If you cannot make your own child happy, how do you expect to be able to make anyone else happy? If all our friends in the peace movement or of service communities of any kind do not love and help each other, whom can we love and help?
Nhat HanhNo single tradition monopolizes the truth. We must glean the best values of all traditions and work together to remove the tensions between traditions in order to give peace a chance.
Nhat HanhI will practice coming back to the present moment...not letting regrets and sorrow drag me back into the past or letting anxieties, fears, or cravings pull me out.
Nhat HanhAnxiety, the illness of our time, comes primarily from our inability to dwell in the present moment.
Nhat HanhWe do not have to die to enter the kingdom of Heaven, In fact we have to be fully alive. When we are truly alive we see that the tree is part of Heaven and we are also part of Heaven. The whole universe is conspiring to reveal this to us. Peace is available and when we touch it everything becomes real. We become ourselves, fully alive in the present moment.
Nhat Hanh